Brewster Hut & Glacier
Going to Brewster Hut (and beyond) in winter is a whole other experience.
Our small party of Christchurch Tramping Club keen beans headed to Brewster Hut for an overnight trip in early October. Just because it was winter, it didn’t mean Brewster Hut wouldn’t be busy! While summer attracts every kind of person, the winter season draws a particular kind of adventurer.
The weather was forecast to be calm and bluebird for several consecutive days, so when we arrived at the hut we were not surprised to be welcomed by a few parties of ski tourers and mountaineers already enjoying the surrounds. We’re pretty ‘hard’ trampers, but we felt like we were hanging out with some next-level adventurers over the next couple days as they climbed some peaks and skied off them down to the glacier.
If you plan on going beyond the hut, you will most certainly require alpine snow skills (training and experience with ice axes, crampons, and helmets) and avalanche skills (including knowledge of how to use transceivers, probes and shovels, and how to avoid being out in avalanche conditions in the first place). We brought all of those things, and assessed conditions while traversing to and from the glacier.
The deck’s a wonderful spot for drying out and warming up after a hard day ski touring or climbing peaks in winter.
Fellow CTCers Hannah and Emma enjoying the setting sun from Brewster Hut, with Topheavy (2076m) behind.
Some ski tourers take off for a grand day out.
I had school holidays, so rather than just come back down and drive all the way back to Christchurch the next day with most of our party, myself and a couple others with no commitments stayed at Brewster Hut the next day to explore the Brewster Glacier.
It takes a bit of time and care to navigate to the glacier and back. It’s not something I’d suggest squeezing in to a single overnight trip. It’d be quite tiresome to tag that on to a day tramping up to Brewster Hut, or even the next day if you’re planning to race back to somewhere like Christchurch - that’s an exhausting day of tramping and then six or more hours on the road. Better to spend a second day/night at Brewster to explore the glacier, and then drive home rested the next day.
The sun set on day 2, and the next day, Jonathan, Lorraine and I scampered down the track back to the car, along with all the ski touring and moutaineering parties. We all felt very lucky to have experienced three bluebird days down south.
From there, we actually didn’t drive straight home - instead, we popped into Haast for a quick cafe stop, and then scooted up to the Mataketake loop, which I’ve also written about.
Now that’s not to say that Brewster Hut in summer is no fun. In fact, I’d say it’s just as gorgeous, but for other reasons. Below are a few photos from my first visit to Brewster Hut back in January 2020. You can clearly see that the glacier has a layer of ash from the Australian bushfires deposited on it. On this trip, I visited a bunch of huts in and around Mt Aspiring National Park, and all the huts’ tank water had become affected by the ash. Despite that bad-tasting inconvenience, it was such a memorable experience to visit Brewster Hut.
